ASIC to Examine Advice at Licensee Level

1

The range and depth of advice provided by licensees and advisers will come under continued scrutiny by ASIC, which flagged that its ongoing surveillance of large vertically integrated groups would also continue.

ASIC made the statement as part of a report on enforcement outcomes from July to December 2016, adding that product design and distribution would also come under closer examination in the future

The regulator stated that as part of its focus on enforcing higher standards in the financial services industry it would be examining the compliance of advisers with their best interest duty and obligation to provide appropriate advice to clients.

ASIC stated it was also focused on the actions of licensees, particularly the failure to deliver ongoing advice services to customers who are paying fees to receive those services and the provision of personal advice under the label of general advice.

“…we will continue to focus on enforcing higher standards in the financial services industry…”

“Over the next six months, we will continue to focus on enforcing higher standards in the financial services industry, paying particular attention to …instances where licensees claim to provide general advice to retail clients during the sale of financial products (and therefore do not need to comply with the best interests duty and related obligations), but are actually providing personal advice.”

“ASIC’s Wealth Management Project will continue to be a focus for our enforcement activity. The project seeks to improve the standards of major financial advice providers in terms of quality of advice and remediation,” ASIC stated.

“We intend to build on the significant number of investigations and surveillances we have undertaken within this project in the last six months, which have resulted in a number of key outcomes,” the regulator added.



1 COMMENT

  1. So nothing new here. ASIC, you know, those that have driven up the cost of advice with over regulated nonsense to benefit no one, encouraged and tolerated the vertical integration model since the Rudd Gillard days only to find out that well…its not working that well and there are lots of conflicts despite the legislation and regulation to ban or attempt to ban such conflicts, and of course who can forget their performances in the past when it came to Timbercorp, Great Southern, Banksia Investments, Prime Property Trust among others and the rubber stamping of these flawed prospectuses to be marketed to the consumer….Ah yes ASIC is truly the noddy cop on the beat. The first to create the problem then act surprised and move to resolve the problem with band aids when the problem hits the fan and causes investors to go broke…and who is their target to kick….us IFA’s .and we should trust this cop…right ?….give me a break!!!!!

Comments are closed.